PADDLE ON!

In Grayling, paddling is big. Like, really big.

- KANDACE CHAPPLE

Jeff Kolka used to spend his summers chasing down the marathon dream. The canoe marathon dream, that is.

Every summer, on the last Saturday in July, as many as 100 teams gather in thin black canoes, over 18 feet in length and barely as wide as a paddler’s hips, and race down the Au Sable River in the dead of the night. Racing from Grayling to Oscoda, the race takes anywhere from 14 to 19 hours and covers 120 twisty miles.

It’s a whole thing. Jeff took nine first-place finishes in the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon with his canoe partner, Serge Corbin, and in 2019, Jeff was inducted into the Marathon Hall of Fame.

Nowadays, though, you’ll find his summers include partners of a smaller (shorter, younger, cuter) scale: Youth paddlers. Jeff coaches the Grayling Paddling Club every summer on Lake Margrethe, where youths gather one evening a week to try their hand at paddling.